Features

Bobo soprano

How monkeys, the Mafia, Italian academia—and, increasingly, American society—illustrate the biological impulse and social peril of nepotism.

One door closes

“Are you a member of the Communist Party?” George Anastaplo, AB’48, JD’51, PhD’64, refused to answer that question, a refusal that shaped his life.

Visceral UChicago

Some sights, sounds, smells, touches, and tastes can send you back to the quads.

Editorial authority

Fresh off simultaneous No. 1 New York Times best sellers, editor Gretchen Young, AB’84, AM’84, continues to find new authors with big stories to tell.

Night shift

For nearly a century, Chicago scientists have explored the deep universe of sleep.

Editor’s Notes

Where t-shirts come to endure

A Special Collections exhibit on student life.

Letters

Readers sound off

Alumni and friends write on what's missing from education at Chicago (and from the Magazine's coverage), David Axelrod’s (AB’76) new campus role, and Martin Luther King Jr.’s campus address. 

On the Agenda

The long view

Marking his 30th year at the University, Provost Thomas Rosenbaum reflects on the constancy of change.

Course Work

Staged reading

Court Theatre’s world premiere gives College students new insight into Invisible Man.

Alumni Essay

Russia’s chance for redemption

Journalist David Satter, AB’68, watches Russia’s second chance for democracy.

UChicago Journal

Chill out

A warm start for Kuviasungnerk swirls to a snowy finish.

Left, right, left, right

Strategist David Axelrod will lead a campus institute designed to be an ROTC for public service.

Holy, holey sonnets

Does Donne dramatize religious incoherence or lapse into it?

Career change

Lucy Wang, MBA’86, went from trading bonds to writing scripts.

Twin studies

Nancy Segal’s (AM’74, PhD’82) experience as a twin inspired her to ask, what makes them alike?

Voice of descent

Thomas Frank, AM’89, PhD’94, fears the rise of conservative populism could deepen economic decline.

Policy matters

Panelists at a Becker Friedman Institute event tackle policy issues in classic Chicago style.

A new generation

Small modular nuclear reactors could have economic and safety benefits, a Chicago study reports.

Salud

Mexico’s universal health care is both an achievement and a work in progress.

Is irony dead?

Jonathan Lear tries to revive the term as Socrates understood it—the opposite of detachment.

William Rainey Harper's Index: Badger's influence

The Law School's former dean of admission has made a lasting mark over four decades.

Fig. 1: Boarding call

A Chicago astrophysicist calculates the fastest way to get airplane passengers into their seats.

For the record: University news

An investment in Indian studies, a new clothing store for Hyde Park, and support for violence interrupters.

Citations: Faculty research

Chicago researchers investigate the irresistible smartphone temptation, why organs don’t always go to the neediest patients, whether evolution happens head first or tails first, and how long hypertension patients have to get their blood pressure under control.

Peer review

University obituaries

Recent faculty, staff, board, and alumni obituaries.

Releases

The Magazine lists a selection of general interest books, films, and albums by alumni. For additional alumni releases, browse the Magazine’s Goodreads bookshelf.

Lite of the Mind

The intellectual lifestyle

A lesson from Nick Kolakowski, AB’03, on what types of eccentricities an aspiring intellectual should embrace.